An orchestrated
attempt to distort and discredit
Takis
Fotopoulos’s biographical
entry in Wikipedia ignited by sockpuppets who acted
as internet “stool pigeons”,
using such
methods as outing names of ID activists and friends,
was revealed and addressed effectively by Wikipedia
administrators a few days ago, after the reaction of
Wikipedia users.

The
Wikipedia user “SentientContrarian”,
a “Wikipedia verified” sock puppet who made his/her
appearance with another Wikipedia account after s/he
miserably failed to distort the Wikipedia entry
approximately three months ago as
user “Elp gr”,
admitted himself implicitly that he is Greek blogger
“Omadeon”, who, along with his Facebook alter ego /
sock puppet, “Danae Papadopoulou”, is the main
executor of a vast and unprecedented defamatory
campaign over the Greek internet, spanning a series
of blogs and Facebook accounts for over 4 months
now, against Takis Fotopoulos and the ID Network in
Greece, as we will see below. This user,
according
to the Wikipedia Administrators’ assessment made
posts in Wikipedia Talk Pages of other users and of
the biographical entry, that…

“contained suggestions regarding the real life
identities of Wikipedia users. This is against
Wikipedia’ s
Harassment policy.
“

Moreover, as an administrator confirmed,

“Checkuser
shows convincing evidence of a link between the
SentientContrarian account and User:Elp
gr which
combined with contributions and writing style show
that the accounts are run by the same user.”

“Both accounts have edit warred, and this
SentientContrarian account has been blocked for edit
warring. The SentientContrarian has also been
blocked for WP:Outing.”

“Given the circumstances of creating inappropriate
accounts, edit warring and outing, your
contributions and actions have been far more harmful
than helpful to our aim of creating an encyclopaedia,
so I am indefinitely blocking both accounts. 11:18,
4 April 2012 (UTC)”

This led to the
Wikipedia administrators turn to block indefinitely
the sockpuppets from editing

The IJID Editorial Board would like to thank the
Wikipedia administrators for their immediate and
accurate response to this sleazy attack by this tiny
group of internet “trolls” and self-styled
“bloggers” represented by Omadeon and/or “Danae
Papadopoulou”, taking into account (a) the
restrictive and, at the same time, dilatant nature
of the norms of the medium, which leads some
administrators to often take a position of “equal
distances” when so serious distorting and harassing
phenomena happen and, (b) that they do not actually
have knowledge of what has been taking place on the
off-Wiki internet during the last 4 months or so.

We will try to
shed some light on the course of the most important
events in this campaign, although unfortunately, our
detailed announcement about the mud-slinging
campaign against us in Greece, is mainly
in Greek.

Before we see
some of the devious methods the internet Troll,
Omadeon (and most likely his scatological Facebook
alter ego, Danae Papadopoulou) used in order to
distort the biographical entry of Takis Fotopoulos,
we would like to remind our readers that such an
attack on ID Wikipedia entries is not an entirely
new thing, as
an almost destructive concerted attack on most ID
entries took place 6 years ago.

Furthermore, as
we said, the new devious attempt to defame
Fotopoulos and his work is not also out of the blue,
but part of an unprecedented, in its length and
persistence, defamatory campaign against Inclusive
Democracy and Takis Fotopoulos personally, which has
been on the go for more than 4 months in Greece,
with more than obvious political connections to the
Reformist – Degenerate “Left”.

As we said, it is
more than evident from the sort of arguments used in
the attack by this Wikipedia user, his/her writing
style, the user profile and “interests”, as well as
the methods s/he used in Wikipedia, and the
systematic exploitation of this attack in external
social media by Omadeon and “Danae Papadopoulou”,
that the sockpuppet who attacked the Takis
Fotopoulos entry in Wikipedia is indeed “Omadeon”
(something that himself almost explicitly revealed,
as we’ ll see below). Omadeon also happens to be the
main executor of an enormous mud-slinging campaign,
which has lasted for more than 4 months on the Greek
internet, with the direct or indirect support of a,
largely subsidized by the system, section
of the
Reformist – Degenerate “Left” in Greece. This “Left”
instead of attacking the institutions of the
neoliberal capitalist globalization in every country
and stand out against the campaign by the
Transnational Elite to expand the system and
encompass the “non-client regimes” into the New
World Order (like the crime against the Libyan
people, and now the Syrian - see
Takis's article),
or instead of attacking Zionism itself, it is
denouncing, with an excess of hypocrisy, the
“politics” of Israel, of “the bad elites”, the
“political system”, “greed” of some “malicious
cliques”, etc.. The support of this sort of “Left”
is evidently
abundant to such sock puppets. Their connection
indicates more or less the motives (either they are
under pay or not) of these internet “Trolls” to
attack possibly the only political movement in
Greece which has been criticizing the despicable
role of this “Left” in today’ s crisis, a
pro-systemic role that has been documented by ID and
is now well-founded.

An additional
indication of the connection of this “Left” with the
sock puppets is provided by the complaint letters
that were sent to prominent members of the Reformist
“Left” by Takis, when the first wave of the attacks
against his biographical entry took place by sock
puppet “Elp gr” in Wikipedia 3 months ago. In these
letters the close internet relationship between
these academics and Facebook sock puppet “Danae
Papadopoulou” was revealed, a relationship which
also included a defamatory dialogue against Takis in
public Facebook Walls. The characteristic lack of a
single response to these founded allegations (in
Greek)was another
indication of Omadeon’ s and Danae’ s close
relationship with a significant part of the
Reformist Left, the (subsidized by the EU) “Greek
Committee against the Public Debt” and the academics
who support it.

The following is
an edit that Omadeon (together with his female
persona, “Danae Papadopoulou”) made in the Talk Page
of a supposed “affiliate” user in his defamatory
“cause”, asking the other user’ s help. This has now
been
deleted by the administrators, because of the
“Outing” he attempted to do against other Wikipedia
users and ID activists. In it he reveals without
much doubt that it’ s him who is involved in this
deplorable (and possibly subsidized) campaign.

In this text,
which summarizes this internet sockpuppet’ s
“arguments” and “victimization” methods, he declares
without leaving much space for misconceptions:

“You see,
as
someone who has been personally involved in this
unfortunate internet drama with the
extremely militant members and supporters of the
Inclusive Democracy
movement (such as User: ”…” - if you do a Google
search on him, you will easily find traces of his
involvement with the Inclusive Democracy movement,
"ID" for short - , User:”…”, whom I believe to be ID
member “…”, and User:”…”, to name a few), my
testimony on what is written in the
Greek-only
announcements cannot be considered as reliable as
that of a neutral, unbiased editor who is fluent in
both languages.”

And, in addition,
Omadeon does not forget to offer a good
advertisement to his stinky blogs, in which, among
other cretinist distortions against texts and
actions of the ID project and Fotopoulos, he has
been systematically “outing” antisystemic activists
and has been slandering them, twisting their words,
actions, and even personalities.

“I will also provide you with a (Greek-language
only) blog article that documents Mr. Fotopoulos and
his movement's actions, as they occurred since
December 2011 (yes, it appears that Mr. Fotopoulos
embarked on an internet war against Greek blogs and
movements in December 2011 and it seems to have
lasted quite a bit, a war in which he seems to have
enlisted the aid of an academic named “…”). The
article contains links to other articles as well, so
I am only going to provide the link to the main one:

In this delirium,
Omadeon repeats in full and in an identical manner
the same series of lies and parroted distortions
which has been spreading all around the Greek (and
not only) blog-o-sphere, along with his Facebook
“alter ego”, “Danae Papadopoulou”, who in a disguise
of a supposed …“real” female persona (although it is
more than obvious to every casual observer that s/he
is another sockpuppet of Omadeon), is throwing tons
of dirt in his/her Facebook Wall and in other users’
and organizations’ Walls, uttering despicable claims
that identify Takis, the ID Network and its members
with Stalinists, and, without any remorse, even with
…National-Socialists and Nazis! Not only this, but
the stinky internet “Troll” even reached the point
where s/he published a fake announcement of
Fotopoulos’ death, which was circulated not only in
“Trolls” blogs, but in some of their associate Greek
Castoriadians’ public Facebook Wall Pages, in
Twitter, etc..

Omadeon’ s main claim for this nasty and coward
personal attack is, that it was Takis and the ID
Network who “attacked” other blogs in the first
place, a claim which brutally twists reality:
The truth
that it was Omadeon and a tiny group of his
affiliate Reformist Left and “life-style anarchist”
affiliates, who assaulted, under the hood of a
badly-perceived anonymity, Takis in a Greek blog.
The pretext of this well planned attack was that the
ID Network criticized and denounced the degenerate
role of the Athens Indymedia and of its Editorial
Committee, which have been systematically censoring
or slandering (with the help of an “established”
group of “life-style anarchists” who are constantly
patronizing the medium) every voice which detracts
from the parallel/liberal Left and the alternative
self-styled “anarchist” voices, about the
NATO-backed “Revolutions” in the Middle East, or any
voice which deviates from the main “anarchist” line
that the Anarchists should open a war with the
members of the Communist Party, as they did in
October, when a few life-style anarchists attacked
its members, because they did not like the way the
tens of thousands of friends and members of the CP
deployed around the Greek Parliament, in order to
“protect” it, as they claimed.

Replying to his
distortions, the Greek ID Network condemned Omadeon’
s devious means, that were almost identical to the
ones he used in Wikipedia so as to distort the
Fotopoulos entry and throw dirt against him and
other users or activists! Following
our reaction to
his sleazy methods (in Greek),
he began a hideous and unprecedented campaign,
together with his alter ego, “Danae Papadopoulou”,
by “trolling” ENERY single blog in which regular and
signed texts by Takis and ID were re-published. Some
of these blogs, belonging to the sort of Reformist
“Left” that Z-Net, “Democracy Now!” etc., also
belong (which Omadeon and Danae Papadopoulou avidly
support), preferred not to stop this crook and his
clique of associates from writing tons of unfounded
slanders against Takis in their Comments sections,
but to let these Comments appear publicly en masse
under Takis’s and ID’ s re-publications, supposedly
in order to support the freedom of speech and that
of a twisted “anonymity”, as if this freedom also
includes slanderous and insulting comments!

This led to the
creation of a mess of twisting pages dedicated to
the supposed “attacks” by Takis against... Omadeon
on the internet, and not vice-versa, as was the real
case! The stance of these blogs, which do not abide
by any democratic means of self-regulation, (as was
e.g. Fotopoulos’ proposal for the blogs’
self-regulation by the administrators of the blogs
themselves and not by any external authority) but
instead abides by the systemic doctrine “Everything
goes”, was criticized by our Network in our Greek
Announcement.

While this was
happening and such events were accumulating, Omadeon
and his sock puppets continued to exploit the stance
of these blogs, in order to defame more and more
Takis, by creating a grotesque story of
“Victimization” and of attacks that supposedly began
by him and the ID Network, and not by Omadeon and a
tiny part of active proponents of the Greek
Reformist “Left” (this includes the subsidized by
the EU Greek Committee against the Public Debt,
reformist parties and patriotic tendencies of the
“Left” in Greece which do not even challenge EU and
neoliberal Globalization, several Castoriadians,
etc.). In other words, all this “Left” that is
directly and indirectly connected with Omadeon’ s
interests and priorities, as anyone can infer from
reading his blog and sockpuppet “Danae Papadopoulou”’
s public Facebook Wall and user profiles.

You can also read
in
the Talk Page of Takis’s biographical entry
a good short representation of the
identically-styled “arguments” that were used (in
several versions) in various Greek blogs’ comments,
and which were also used in the Omadeon’ s and Danae
Papadopoulou’ s posts and their blogs and Facebook
pages respectively. As one could expect, the
defamatory internet stool pigeons and their
Wikipedia sock puppets Elp gr and SentientContrarian,
attempted to excuse their blatantly disrupting
activity in the entry, by “victimizing” themselves
and their friendly “Leftist” blogs and by turning
from assailants into defendants, without any shred
of proof for their claims. An activity which was
spotted and reported, not only by users, but by
administrators as well, resulting to their
indefinite block, as we saw above.

Nevertheless, this identical attack in Wikipedia was
not only similar in terms of “Arguments”. Omadeon
and his sockpuppets employed similar methods in
Wikipedia, to the ones they used all over the
“alternative” Greek media in order to leave their
mud. So, like the aggressive methods Omadeon and “Danae
Papadopoulou” used in other blogs and Facebook
pages, (i.e. unstoppably “trolling” them, even
threatening them, as it happened in the web page of
the Greek economist Dimitris Kazakis), their
Wikipedia sockpuppets, respectively,
contacted other editors and admins personally in
their Wikipedia “Talk Pages”, when they felt they
were affiliate to their “cause”, trying to gain
supporters for it by writing things like:

“What's the deal with the Inclusive Democracy
supporters? They're so aggressive and militant;
please see my Talk page for some samples of their
behaviour. What should be done about it?SentientContrarian(talk)
11:45, 1 April 2012 (UTC)”

Also, I have a strong dislike towards articles
that read like they were created by someone'sfan
club,
especially if that particular fan club exhibits a
behaviour that is against Wikipedia's Community
Standards. This sort of stuff does not belong on
Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia for that matter.
Those who can't be bothered to abide by these
standards should do us a favor and remove themselves
from this community posthaste.

"

As a Wikipedia
administrator noticed, it is exactly this
(self-acclaimed) “cause” by this internet “Troll”,
stressed in the paragraph above, which is already a
reason to dispute his constructive and “community”
motives in an on-line Encyclopedia with elementary
ethical rules, like Wikipedia. Nevertheless, this
crook had the nerve to make lessons about what
belongs or not to Wikipedia and who fits in it! But
the reply came by Wikipedia administrators, with a
very resounding condemnation of his Wikipedia
presence.

It is not
accidental, either, that Omadeon and his sockpuppets
on the Greek internet, also share similar special
interests, as their Wikipedia User pages display.
(informatics, logic etc.)

Finally, to
thwart off any doubt that “Danae Papadopoulou”,
Omadeon’ s Facebook sock puppet, the twin executor
of this filthy campaign, is part of the same
campaign plotted by these (possibly hired) internet
stool pigeons who “out” antisystemic activists to
their pro-systemic and liberal-Left “friends”, one
can look at the following post in her/his public
Facebook Wall, a little while before s/he received
an indefinite block at Wikipedia.

In this, and in a similar manner to what they tried
to do in Wikipedia, s/he posted this revealing
statement:

“Well… A bit
of outing
now. User “…” in Wikipedia is the member of
“Inclusive Democracy” “…” [full name] (one
of Takis Fotopoulos’ acolytes).”

In addition, s/he writes about the "necessary"
academic qualifications of the outed ID member:

“Who is “…”? He is the “…”. He has a “…”. He is
writing “…”, but he DOESN’ T HAVE any scientific
presence, because the only thing he has done up to
now as regards publications, is to write in ID.”